Snowflakes
by Calypso Diangelos
Summary: If each of us were a snowflake, we would float freely amongst the clouds before we melted and became a memory. Ian and Irons must now each learn to let go of a woman and her beautiful memory.


Snowflakes

By: Calypso Diangelos

Rating: PG

Summary: If each of us were a snowflake, we would float freely amongst the clouds before we melted and became a memory. Ian and Irons must now each learn to let go of a woman and her beautiful memory.

Disclaimer: Witchblade and its characters are the property of topcow and it's affiliates; I claim no ownership of anyone in this story and do not intend to make any profit from this.

Category: Vignette - Angst

AN: Well… ok so it's been awhile since I've written anything Witchblade (I swear I'll finish STTS one of these days!) but please read this anyway. Thanks J 

The new fallen snow lay like a blanket of innocence on the cold city of New York. Though each flake fell gently the collective brought with them a merciless cold which numbed the inhabitants of that metropolis. The man sitting in an unambiguous black limo couldn't feel the stinging air outside, but if he had he wouldn't have minded as the others did. These days, cold was just about all Kenneth Irons felt. Biting cold that numbed everything from his hands to his soul. 

In the cemetery a fresh grave was just beginning to disappear beneath the layers of white rained down upon it, the shiny new headstone seemingly oblivious to the snow which was hiding its words. There was only a man and a little girl standing beside it, listening to the words of a priest who himself was too sad to have been someone just there to perform the last rights. The little girl didn't cry, didn't notice the snow gathering in her dark brown hair and on her flowers. She seemed to be in a world completely different from her reality. Behind her, the man in police uniform was not so impassive. Those tears that did not freeze on his cheek fell readily. It seemed that the hand he rested on his daughter's shoulder was the only thing keeping him up. In the car Kenneth Irons could already envision the tones of gray that would streak his blond hair, the wrinkles that would deepen in his face and the defeat that would build in his soul.

In his car the man with white hair grieved slightly as well. Though his grieving was not so much for the woman in the grave as the girl standing beside it. He watched her with all the intensity that his blue gray eyes allowed, ignoring the strands of silver white hair that fell against his forehead. This would be only the beginning for her, for he knew the world of pain that awaited this seemingly fragile child. He understood better then any the shadows that would fall across her future. 

"I love you mother."

Her voice drifted to him over the distance, the softly spoken words somehow carrying across the frigid silence that froze the very air. If he knew how to cry, the man in the car would have shed tears for her then, but the power of sympathy had left him behind long ago. After dropping her Chrysanthemums on the now frozen grave, the child reached out a hand and took her fathers in it. Leading him away with her. Letting her determined strength flow into his shattered heart. Kenneth watched them walk away, focusing on her.

This little girl would be the next welder, and if fate played with her as cruelly as it did now, then her time would come far too soon. He had left the molding of the last welder too late, perhaps this time he could amend that mistake. Pondering upon that thought, he signaled to his driver and in moments he was just another man, traveling the frosty gray roads of New York City on a cold winter's day.

***

Ian Nottingham stood as still and straight as the trees around him, blending into the slight fringe of wildlife as well as he blended into the city's many shadows. The virgin snow around him lay undisturbed, a testament to how long it had been since he last stirred. His eyes were fixed on the newly carved gravestone, but in his mind it was the image of the little girl and her father that he saw although the others had long since gone. Even the tire marks left by the unmarked car of Kenneth Irons had been covered by the snow.

Ian too was covered in frost, though it was not so much the frost of cold he felt as that of regret and words that had been left unsaid. In his heart there was nothing but shattered pieces and piercing icicles. In his hands a single red rose had been frozen in its perfection, a gentle beauty amongst the hard sorrowful cold. At last he seemed to remember the reason he had come and slowly stepped forward towards the grave. Shedding the cocoon of impassive dispassion as his moved. 

The closer he drew to the source of his regrets, the fiercer the ember of anger began to burn in his mind. Anger at himself for not having prevented such sorrow, anger at her for choosing to love her detective, for abandoning her little daughter in such a permanent way. Why hadn't she stayed longer? Why had she chosen to love and sacrifice for someone so undeserving? 

The bitter wind died suddenly, and the truth of the matter floated to the surface of his mind. _If I had been a better protector… I could've saved you. If I had been less of a fool…I wouldn't have lost you. _His anger died, leaving in its wake a hallow grief. She was gone, and now that he could finally say what he had long denied, it was far too late. Slowly and deliberately, he set the rose he'd brought for her down, but in the last second, a single blood petal floated upon the breeze to land amongst the snow a small distance away, marring it's perfection. Tenderly he wiped the snow that had gathered upon the tablet away, touching his lips to the cold gray stone. "I love you."

The man in black faded back into the shadows like the wraith that he had become, leaving naught but the gray sky and the snow to remember his broken heart. In the graveyard there was only the spirits of the dead left to read the inscription on the headstone.

Sarah P McCarty

Beloved Wife and Mother

~ Fini ~


End file.
